Tradition helps to ensure continuity and stability in human affairs, signifying both the handing down of cultural heritage from one generation to the next, and the particular customs, beliefs and rituals being handed down. In the social sciences, tradition has been a central concept from the very start. Yet -- to update the old quip about nostalgia -- tradition is not what it used to be. Twenty years ago, Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger showed in The Invention of Tradition how new governments acquire legitimacy and status by creating "traditional" ceremonies and identities. Their work helped revolutionise the understanding of tradition in anthropology, history and sociology, stimulating an enormous amount of research on invented and imagined traditions. However, most of this research has focussed on the cultural dynamics of specific local innovations and reactions to global developments. The present anthology seeks to highlight instead just how widespread the invention and revival of traditions is. The individual chapters feature a fascinating series of case studies from Africa, Asia, the Pacific, Australia, and Europe, while the editors provide an overview of how the various discussions address the larger questions of cultural continuity, agency and the use of cultural resources. In the postscript, Terence Ranger offers a complementary perspective by tracing the effects of nationalism, imperialism and globalised exchange on tradition.

Text in German. The purpose of the present work is to combine the advantages of the various research traditions and at the same time to avoid the respective disadvantages. An attempt will be made to interpret the existing archaeological facts with reference to cultural development in large parts of Europe. As a first step an investigation will be made of all indications of contacts between the Ertebølle culture and the early Funnel Beaker culture (5500-3500 BC) on the one hand, and Neolithic cultures in various parts of Europe on the other hand. This will incorporate an analysis of all imported artefacts and also locally produced artefacts and structures with a form that suggests external influence. The results will subsequently be used for an investigation of a range of local factors -- such as regionality, social structures and communication structures - which are thought to be of significance for understanding the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition. An analysis will also be carried out of the central European background of the Funnel Beaker culture. The results of these investigations will in conclusion be combined into a new theory concerning the introduction of agriculture in the Nordic region.

This book provides a detailed description of the three ancient temples unearthed between 1954-1961 near Barbar on the northern part of Bahrain island in the Persian Gulf. Two of the structures, from the centuries around 2000 BC, reveal traditions going back to Sumerian temples. A number of spectacular objects were found here, including cylindrical alabaster jars, a human-shaped copper mirror handle and the most famous object from the Barbar Temples, a bull's head of copper. Structurally, a chamber was found over a freshwater spring, indicating the presence of a water cult and perhaps forging a connection to Enki, the Mesopotamian god of the subterranean freshwater ocean, apsu. The temple-apsu is well known from cuneiform sources, but has been extremely difficult to identify in Mesopotamian excavations. The Barbar well chamber may be such an apsu, as the authors point out among their highly detailed descriptions and analysis of the finds.

This is a book of stories about sports persons: sports stars, less-known athletes and relatively unknown physical education teachers and sports scientists. More exactly, these 13 essays all deal with problems associated with writing sport biographies - how does an author navigate among myths and truths? Why do some athletes live on in the public mind while others, whose achievements may have been greater, fade from memory? Are sports biographies different from those dealing with people from the non-sporting realm? The subjects range from direct theoretical explorations of writing sport biographies to discussions of biographies themselves. Topics include the following: Danish gymnastics pedagogue Niels Bukh; two studies of physical education teachers, including Martti Silvennionen's work on autoethnographical pedagogy in PE teacher training; women's sport in Denmark's intermediary period of 1920-1950; writing about women and sport, and the Finnish worker sports movement experience from a woman's viewpoint. Another essay observes the contrasts in the legends of two sports stars in twentieth century Britain, the English footballer Jackie Milburn and the Olympic athlete, Godfrey Brown. Other topics include the English sports hero from the 1940s and 50s, Denis Compton, the Swedish footballer Lennart "Nacka" Skoglund and the Danish cyclist Niels Fredborg. "Writing Lives in Sport" provides lively discussions of individual sporting lives as well as important methodological and conceptual questions for writers and biographers of sport figures and other genres.

As the most important philosophical work to emerge in the 700-year period between Aristotle and Augustine, The Enneads has been subject to intense scrutiny for more than 2000 years. But the mystical and abstract nature of these treatises by Plotinus continues to resist easy elucidation. In this volume, the latest in the Aarhus Studies on Mediterranean Antiquity, Asger Ousager grapples with the great neo-Platonist's conception of the individual. Is the individual free or determined? Is the Plotinian God subject to any compulsion Himself, and with what consequences for our inner and outer freedom? And finally, what are the political and ethical implications of Plotinism? Since Plotinus has traditionally been regarded as apolitical, it is the evidence that Ousager marshals for his political philosophy that forms the most intriguing part of this study. According to the author, what distinguishes Plotinus from Plato and Aristotle politically is his emphasis on natural authority, mutual co-operation and the immense potential of all people, even slaves. The volume concludes with a brief survey of archaeological evidence for the direct social and political impact of Plotinus' thought on his own age.

As the 20th century drew to a close, the trend to globalisation became the focus of vigorous debate across the economic and political spectrum. It fascinated businessmen, intoxicated stock markets, angered trade unions, confused politicians and divided academic commentators. Everybody agreed, however, that one key element of the process of globalisation was the role played by new technology. Clearly, technological change has driven globalisation forward, but is it new? Does the evolution of 'globalised technology' have earlier, historical origins? Putting the transfer of technology between nations into historical context, this book considers the degree to which global technologies have made national institutions and traditions of technology redundant. We know that globalisation erodes national cultural values and even the sovereignty of nation states; does it also lead to standardised global technology? Bringing together a cross-disciplinary gathering of scholars from both sides of the Atlantic, this book addresses these questions within a broad historical framework.

Durable and iconic, coins are some of the most revealing everyday objects left to us from the ancient world. For the most part, however, they have been considered the special domain of numismatists, who typically seek to assemble as many varieties as possible. But in focusing on the rarities that form a collection's highlights, numismatists slight contextual clues to economic history and the daily use of coins as money. In this volume, Erik Christiansen uses Alexandrian coin hoards -- meaning finds of at least two coins buried together -- to explore the use of money in Egypt from its conquest by Augustus in 30 BC to Diocletian's currency reform in AD 296. Although these finds, with their wide array of Graeco-Roman and Alexandrian reverses, have traditionally been classified as a part of Greek coinage, he demonstrates clearly that they belong to the Roman imperial coinage. The hoards also show that Roman Egypt enjoyed a widespread monetised economy, in addition to the credit system described in extant papyri. The relative abundance of such documents provides Christiansen with a good supplemental source of information for his conclusions. And since financial administration probably was quite uniform throughout the Empire, this book provides a useful window not only on Rome's shifting economic fortunes, but also on monetary policy in other parts of the Empire that did not leave behind the same rich heritage of coins and documents as Egypt.

From Handaxe to Khan - Essays Presented to Peder Mortensen on the Occasion of his 70th Birthday

This volume challenges the orthodox view that fishing and fish played only a marginal role in the economy of the ancient world. In fact, there is archaeological evidence for ancient fish processing on a commercial scale not only in the Mediterranean itself, but also on the Atlantic coast and in the Black Sea region, especially the Crimea. Our literary sources testify to the widespread culinary and medicinal use of salted fish and fermented fish sauces in antiquity, and especially in the first centuries AD. In this book, the authors assess the present state of research on ancient fishing and discuss its implications for the history of the Black Sea region, especially the period of Greek colonisation along its shores. While grain has traditionally been viewed as the main export commodity of the Pontic colonies, the existence of salting-vats on the coast of the Crimea indicate production of salt-fish or fish sauce on a large scale, presumably for export. However, many questions remain unanswered: for instance concerning ownership and organisation of the processing facilities, or how the finished product was transported to distant markets.

From 1725 until his death in 1741, Bering commanded two of the most ambitious journeys of exploration in the 18th century. Each required years of overland travel across Asia to reach desolate Kamchatka and the Pacific coast of Siberia, where the crews had to build their own ships. Only then could the search for the mythical Northeast Passage and the north-western coastline of America begin. During the late 1990s/early 21st century, the discovery of forgotten documents in Russian archives has revitalised the study of these classic expeditions, and the contributors to this volume are all part of the new scholarship. Here they examine such topics as expedition historiography, the participants' daily life, the beginnings of scientific ethnography and the connection between the expeditions' scientific objectives and their political ends. These political goals included the colonisation of northern Pacific islands and the North American coast, and manifested themselves in two sets of instructions -- one genuine, one false.

To speak about the relationship between reality and art is like wanting to solve an equation with two unknowns. Nonetheless they are so closely bound up with each other that one is almost bound to mention the two quantities in the same breath. Is there much of a difference then between art and reality? For what is reality but what we make of it? With our cities and buildings, our tamed landscape and manifold utensils, with all the available remedies and media we shape reality at will, in our own image. This, however, is not true only of our concrete products. We form our reality also through the thoughts and ideas we have about ourselves and the world, and through the concepts by which we try to cope with it. Consequently all art must have its origin in a belief in the existence of reality whatever constitutes the kind of reality that the individual professes to see as his own. It is not, therefore, the intention in this volume to explore the universal laws of art and track down the imprint they have left on reality in the work of art. On the contrary, art will be seen as the means of expression which, due to its diversity and changeability, will always be the proper medium to capture the glimpse of the reality current at any given moment and preserve the picture of it in a more lasting, though not in a universally valid form.

Archaeological settlement studies are called diachronic when they deal with chronological development - local or regional - over time. The articles in this book remain within the Bronze Age for the most part, and cover periods that vary from a few hundred to thousands of years. The contributions represent three traditions in European diachronic settlement studies: a Northern, where posthole archaeology has become the norm; a Central European, dominated by other elements, including the crucial role of the Danube in the understanding of innovation; and a South European, dominated by massive, well preserved stone architecture. The aim of this European Science Foundation (ESF) workshop, from which these reports emanated, was to present studies from a wide range of European countries in order to illustrate the different scientific approaches to common problems. By doing this, the participants examined how different research traditions, administrative practices and financial restrictions influence archaeological practices. They then search for new common approaches. The collection of reports cover archaeological studies from Scandinavia, northern Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and England. This book will be valuable for archaeologists and students of archaeology, not only for the subject matter of each report but also for the theoretical discussions of research methods.

This volume presents a selection of papers read at the CESNUR 1997 conference in Amsterdam. The articles are divided into four sections each with its own relevance to the study of new religions in contemporary society; esotericism, millennialism and eschatology, religious leaders, and, more broadly, social aspects of the new religions. The contributors work in the fields of sociology, sociology of religion, history of religion, anthropology and theology, thus reflecting the well established tradition for interdisciplinary efforts in the study of new religions. The contributors are Judith Coney, Jean Duhaime, Robert Ellwood, Liselotte Frisk, Massimo Introvigne, Constance A. Jones, Reender Kranenburg, Albertina Nugteren, David Piff, Mikael Rothstein, Mark Sedgwick, Jan A.M. Snoek, Cristine Steyn and Margit Warburg.

Raised to honour Maussolos, a Persian satrap of the 4th century BCE, the Maussolleion in Halikarnassos was renowned throughout the ancient world as one of its Seven Wonders. Pliny the Elder provided a useful description of it several centuries later, but another fourteen passed before the invention of moveable type made his observations available to a wider public. In Volume 5, Jeppesen tries to reconcile Pliny's account of the superstructure with recent archaeological finds. The passage in Pliny's Natural History has been corrupted by untold generations of copyists, and reconstructions have focused on producing a grammatically acceptable text, with little regard for consistency and sense. Jeppesen compares variant readings from the 58 known manuscripts and proposes a model that tallies with the new archaeological evidence. The volume concludes with a survey of the architectural fragments held by the British Museum and the Maussolleion Museum in Bodrum.

This volume is a study of selected ceramic finds from the Maussolleion site and the first major publication on Karian pottery since 1965. From a body of 120,000 items, the authors have emphasised in situ contexts related to the construction of the Maussolleion, and representative items from the large body of Hellenistic material.

Many questions regarding sense and the senses in art and aesthetics are addressed in this anthology. Meditating on philosophy, fine arts, and literature, as well as on the more simple 'joys of life' such as cinema, dirty language, and food, the authors draw upon a wide range of phenomena, none of which is more privileged than the others. Art´s relationship to humankind exists through the senses, it seems. The fact that different kinds of art exists might be associated with the circumstance that we have disparate senses, thus the divergent ways in which the aesthetic experience is transmitted. Art, therefore, can necessarily be understood as a fundamental plurality, since there is no single way to experience it. Accordingly, we tend to distinguish, for example, between those art forms that lend themselves to the senses of distance (sight and hearing) and the proximate senses of smell, touch and taste. In art, it has been maintained that the so-called 'fine arts' -- music and the visual arts -- were based on the distant senses, while the 'lower arts' -- such as perfumery and gastronomy -- were associated with the proximate senses. But, how could we conceptualize differences among art and the senses at all if we lacked a common concept -- a sensus communis -- of art and sense? With subjects ranging quite literally from philosophy to faeces, the reader of this anthology will find new views on film directors such as Quentin Tarantino, Lars von Trier, and Krzysztof Kieslowski; authors such as Sylvia Plath, Vilhelm Ekelund, Elias Canetti, and Rainer-Maria Rilke; and philosophers such as Jean-Luc Nancy, Friedrich Nietzsche, Peter Sloterdijk, and Michel Serres.